Page 1 of The Girlfriend Goal

"Fletcher, stop dragging your ass and get changed," Coach's voice boomed across the parking lot. "Team meeting in fifteen."

I waved him off with what I hoped looked like enthusiasm rather than the half-dead zombie shuffle it actually was.

My phone buzzed with game footage from our assistant coach—because apparently torturing us physically wasn't enough.

I pulled up the video as I navigated the familiar hallways of the athletic complex, squinting at my defensive positioning from yesterday's scrimmage.

The play developed on my screen: Morrison charging down the left wing, me stepping up to challenge, the puck squirting free to—shit, was that really how wide I'd left the passing lane?

I rewound, studying the angle of my approach.

No wonder Coach had made us run until Petersen actually puked.

My gap control was sloppier than Matt's attempts at making breakfast.

Lost in the analysis, I pushed through what muscle memory told me was the men's locker room door.

The familiar smell of industrial disinfectant mixed with decades of athletic sweat should have hit me first. Instead, I caught a whiff of something distinctly floral, which was weird because the guys' locker room usually smelled like a gym sock.

I looked up from my phone just in time to see my life flash before my eyes.

A half-dressed woman stood frozen in front of an open locker, clutching a Greenfield University soccer jersey to her chest. Her eyes widened in shock before narrowing into laser beams of pure fury.

"What the hell," she started.

"Oh shit! I'm so sorry!" I spun around so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash, my phone clattering to the floor. "I thought this was—"

"The men's locker room?" Her voice could’ve cut glass. "Can you not read? Or do you just think you're entitled to walk into any room you want because you're what, some hockey player who thinks the entire campus is your personal playground?"

I kept my back turned, staring at the door I'd just entered. Sure enough, there was a sign and it definitely didn't say "Men's Locker Room." The letters swam a bit, the way they always did when I was tired, but even I could make out the "W" at the beginning.

"I'm really sorry," I said to the door. "I was watching game footage and not paying attention."

"Oh, game footage? Well, that explains everything.

God forbid an athlete actually look where he's going when there might be game footage to watch.

" The sarcasm in her voice could have stripped paint.

"I suppose you think this is funny? Big hockey star 'accidentally' stumbles into the women's locker room? What, is this some kind of dare from your teammates? Fifty bucks to whoever can sneak a peek at the women’s soccer team? "

"What? No." I turned partially, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling tiles. "Look, I'm Lance Fletcher. I play defense for—"

"I don't care if you're the dean's love child," she snapped. "You're a creep who just invaded my space, and I'm about five seconds away from calling campus security."

"Please don't do that." I risked a glance down and immediately regretted it.

Not because of her state of undress—she'd managed to pull on the jersey—but because the fury on her face made Coach Stevens look like a teddy bear.

"It was an honest mistake. I've been coming here since freshman year and I was just on autopilot. "

"On autopilot?" She stepped forward, and even though she was at least seven inches shorter than me, I found myself backing up.

"Must be nice to be so comfortable on campus that you can just cruise around on autopilot, walking into any room you please.

Tell me, do they give you a map during hockey orientation labeled 'These Are All Your Spaces Because You're Special'? "

"I don't think I'm special." Well, that wasn't entirely true. I'd been told I was special my whole life, just not in the way she meant. More in the 'Special Ed' way that I'd spent years hiding.

She laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound.

"Right. The star defenseman for the university's golden boys doesn't think he's special.

I bet you also don't think you deserve the brand-new weight room they built just for you guys last year.

Or the chartered flights to away games. Or the fancy nutritionist."

"Okay, I get it." I held up my hands in surrender. "Hockey gets a lot of resources. But that doesn't mean I'm some entitled asshole who goes around perving on women's soccer players."

"Could’ve fooled me." She tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear, a gesture that for some reason made my brain short-circuit for half a second. "And we're not 'women's soccer players.' We're soccer players. We don't call you 'men's hockey players,' do we?"

She had a point. Several points, actually. All of them sharp and aimed directly at my ego.

"You're right. I'm sorry. You're soccer players." I retrieved my phone from the floor, noting with dismay that the screen had cracked. Karma worked fast. "I'm Rachel Fox, by the way. Captain of the soccer team."

"Captain?!" Now I was impressed.

"What? Surprising? That a woman can be a team captain?"

"No! Jesus, do you always assume the worst?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.

Her eyes flashed dangerously. "When it comes to hockey players?

Yes. You've given me no reason to think otherwise.

Your whole team struts around campus like you own the place, taking up entire pathways, commandeering study rooms during finals week, acting like your sport is the only one that matters. "

"That's not—" I started to protest, then stopped. Because honestly? She wasn't entirely wrong. The guys did tend to travel in packs, and we weren't exactly known for our spatial awareness off the ice. "Okay, some of the guys can be dicks."

"Some?"

"Most," I admitted. "But not all of us are like that."

"Right." She pulled her hair into a ponytail with quick, efficient movements.

"Tell me, Lance Fletcher, star defenseman who's definitely not like other hockey players, how many women's sports games have you attended?

How many times have you watched our game footage?

Can you even name two players on the soccer team? "

I opened my mouth, then closed it. The truth was, I couldn't name a single player besides the captain currently eviscerating me.

"That's what I thought." She grabbed a bag from her locker and slammed it shut.

"You're all the same. You think because you can skate backwards and hit people with sticks, the sun rises and sets on your schedule.

Well, news flash. Some of us are out here working just as hard for a fraction of the recognition and resources. "

"I said I was sorry."

"And I said I don't care." She shouldered her bag and stalked toward me. I stepped aside quickly, but she paused at the door. "Next time, try actually reading the sign. Though I guess that might be asking too much from someone who probably got into university on a hockey scholarship."

The jab about reading hit closer to home than she could’ve known. I felt my jaw clench, the familiar shame rising up. But before I could respond, she was gone, leaving me alone in the women's locker room like the idiot I was.

"Probably can't even read the sign on the door," I heard her mutter as the door swung shut.

I stood there for a full minute, processing what had just happened.

In the years at Greenfield, I'd never had a woman look at me with such complete and utter disdain.

Usually, mentioning I played hockey opened doors, not slammed them in my face.

But Rachel had been thoroughly, completely unimpressed. More than that—she'd been disgusted.

It should’ve been humiliating. So why couldn't I stop thinking about the way her eyes had sparked when she was angry? Or how she'd commanded the entire space despite being half-dressed and caught off guard? Or the way she'd said my name like it was something distasteful she needed to spit out?

My phone buzzed. Team meeting in five minutes. Shit.

I sprinted out of the women's locker room—after double-checking the sign—and found the correct door two hallways over. The guys were already gathering, most of them looking as wrecked as I felt.

"Yo, Fletcher!" Matt called out from across the room. "Where the hell were you? You missed the pre-meeting entertainment. Petersen's still got puke on his shoes."

"Got lost," I muttered, dropping onto the bench next to him.

"Lost? In the rink you've been coming to for years?" Matt studied me with the intensity he usually reserved for deciding which dating app match to pursue. "You look weird. Weirder than usual, I mean."

"Thanks, asshole."

"Seriously, what's up, man? You've got that face you make when you're trying to solve calculus problems."

"I don't make a face."

"You absolutely make a face. It's like this." He scrunched up his features in what I assumed was supposed to be an imitation of me.

"That's just my regular face."

"Nah, your regular face is more 'confident asshole with a side of father issues.'" He wasn't wrong. "This is different. This is—holy shit, is this about a girl?"

"No."

"It's totally about a girl." His voice rose with excitement. "Lance Fletcher, commitment-phobe extraordinaire, has finally met a girl who's gotten under his skin. This is better than when I matched with those twins."

"Would you shut up?" I glanced around, but the other guys were too busy nursing their post-practice exhaustion to pay attention. "It's not about a girl."

Before he could respond, Coach Stevens entered, and the room fell silent.

He launched into his usual post-practice breakdown, but I found my mind wandering.

Not to the defensive zone coverage he was diagramming on the whiteboard, but to a pair of stunning eyes that had looked at me like I was something she'd scrape off her cleats.

"Fletcher?" Coach's voice snapped me back to reality. "Since you're clearly too advanced for this discussion, why don't you explain to Morrison why his gap control was shit yesterday?"

"Uh..." I scrambled to remember what we were talking about. "He was too aggressive on the forecheck?"

"That was you, man," Morrison called out. "Coach just spent five minutes explaining how you left me hanging when you stepped up on that two-on-one."

The room erupted in laughter, and I sank lower on the bench.

"Maybe if Fletcher spent less time working on his hair and more time working on his positioning," Coach muttered, turning back to the board.

Matt elbowed me. "Seriously, dude, what is going on with you?"

I thought about Rachel, standing there in her righteous fury, calling out every entitled behavior she'd witnessed from hockey players. The way she'd tucked that strand of hair behind her ear.

"Nothing," I lied. "Just tired."

But as Coach droned on about defensive responsibilities, I couldn't shake the feeling that my nothing had stunning eyes, a mean right hook of a vocabulary, and absolutely zero interest in my hockey-playing ass.

Which, naturally, made me want to see her again.